


took the words (right out of my mouth)

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Baseball, Gay, M/M, canon can't touch me, scottish weddings, teenagers to husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: four times fred and fp said "i love you"





	took the words (right out of my mouth)

**Author's Note:**

> i got the saddest message from briana in the whole world after the episode last night and that was some tomfoolery i just could not stand so this is for you briana i love you, please don't cry, they're married boys now and they're going to live happily ever after

FP’s alone in the kitchen of his run-down trailer, trying to coax a piece of toast out of his toaster that will slightly resemble the texture of bread, when his phone rings. Fred doesn’t even introduce himself when he picks up.  

“We’re sick today.”

“We’re sick today?” FP repeats amusedly, scraping the crumb-encrusted bottom of his margarine container until it yields up a pitiful amount of butter. “I'm never sick. I just don't show up.”

“Well, I'm sick today.” Fred’s voice has taken on a petulant edge. FP pictures him sitting on the edge of his bed, converse dangling, a pout on his face. “So come over and take care of me or something.” 

FP drops the knife in the sink and grins. He and Fred have long since developed a system for taking time off school. Calling in sick in order to spend time alone means an impromptu tryst either in the basement rec room of the Andrews house or up against the wall in the trailer if Fred’s feeling really frisky. FP’s never one to turn that down. 

“I don't know,” teases FP, cradling the phone against his ear. “If whatever you have’s catching, I don't want it." He licks some butter off his thumb. "Have you pulled the whole Ferris Bueller routine?”

“Nah, I didn't have to. My dad left early. And mom’s gone until tomorrow.” Fred lowers his voice. “The whole place is ours.” 

“And what if I chose today to start prioritizing my education?” 

“I’d say good for you, FP.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah and then I’d go look at the flying pig out the window.” 

FP takes a bite of his toast, grinning around the burnt crumbs that tumble out of his mouth and down onto his shirt. He brushes a handful off. “So when you say you want me to take care of you-” 

“I’m trying to clandestinely suggest you take the waistband of my jeans down with your teeth. But if you're not down, we can just, like, nap.”

“I'm down for both.” 

“Sweet.” 

“You're the sweet one.”

“Oh, you.” He can hear the careless smile on Fred’s lips. FP imagines catching the lower one in his mouth. “Get here quick, it looks like rain.” 

“It rained all night, didn't you hear it?” 

“I sleep at night, F.” FP’s nocturnal habits have long been a point of contention between the two of them. Fred worries about his best friend. Constantly. “Hurry up. I’ll make sandwiches for lunch.”

FP folds the rest of his toast into a triangle and shoved it in his mouth. “Be there in ten.”

The rain is a steady downpour by the time FP stops his bike outside his best friend’s house. Maneuvering it carefully under the overhang of the garage to keep it mostly dry, he foregoes the front door to slip through the side gate and around to the back, stepping high to avoid the damp weeds that snarl at his ankles. Weeding the side yard is usually Fred’s job. It looks like he’s a few months behind. 

Fred answers the patio door dressed in rumpled pajama pants and a T-shirt FP recognizes as his own. His face splits into a wide grin when he sees FP, and steps quickly back to let his friend in out of the rain. FP nods at the shirt as he passes. 

“How long have you had that one?” 

“Dunno.” Fred looks down at himself, pulling the shirt out in front of him to read it. “It was under my bed.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” says FP, slipping his shoes off. “I’m gonna get you out of it real soon anyway.” 

From inside the Andrews’ furnished basement, the steady stream of rain striking the window sounds peaceful and safe. The lights are off so that the single window casts everything in a dim natural light, the shadow of the rain on the window casting patterns on the carpet and the cushions of the sofa. FP glances at it, but before he can drag his best friend over to their usual makeout spot, Fred speaks up. 

“FP, I don't just want you for sex, you know?” 

FP freezes, caught off guard. Fred’s cheeks are glowing an embarrassed pink, but he doesn’t drop his eyes from FP’s face. He smiles, awkward and sincere. FP can feel himself blushing. He hadn’t known. Not for sure. 

“I like you a lot,” Fred adds softly. “Not just because of this.” 

Swallowing hard, FP reaches out and slides his hand up under Fred’s shirt,  along his hip. Fred’s eyes fall closed and FP takes the hint, leaning in and kissing him full on the mouth. He slips his tongue in when Fred parts his lips, moving his hand further still under Fred’s shirt to caress his lower back. 

“Same here,” FP replies quietly when they pull apart, though he figures it goes without saying. “Me too.” 

Fred reaches up and grips his forearm and FP kisses him again, hard and needy and fierce. He walks him back up to the couch, gently pushing Fred into a sitting position and climbing onto the cushion next to him. They swap positions almost immediately, FP stretching out on the couch and letting Fred lay himself down on top of him. 

They settle back into their familiar routine, Fred tangling his fingers in FP’s hair, FP gripping Fred’s bony shoulder blades through the back of his shirt, stopping only briefly whenever they switch positions. The rain is a steady tattoo outside, deepening the comfortable familiarity of the Andrews basement. Fred kisses like he’s trying to drink the breath out of him, and FP opens his mouth and lets him take. Fred tastes sweet on his tongue. Sweet like sugar. 

“My lips hurt,” laughs Fred after they’ve been at it for hours, and buries his face in FP’s chest. He’s laying stretched out long on top of FP again, their legs tangled together at the end of the couch. FP enjoys it for a moment, the warm weight of him pressing him into the couch, the soft smell of his clothes and hair, the way his back rises and falls with his sleepy breathing. Fred and FP. FP and Fred. The  _ I love you _ , they haven’t said. 

“You can sleep if you want,” offers FP quietly, daring to run his fingers gently through his best friend’s hair. Fred leans up and kisses him messily before nuzzling back into FP’s chest, conceding without another word. 

FP wants to tell him that this matters to him. That he's never felt this way about anyone before, that he already knows he never will again. That it goes deeper and longer than  _ I like you a lot and not just for this. _ They’re alone together now and he might not get another chance: Fred half-asleep and perfect, FP’s heart beating so hard and fast at his presence that his friend should be able to feel it through his chest. 

He opens his mouth to say it, the three words he’s never used before, for anyone. Plans to bury it in the rain, brush it off as a mistake if his sleepy friend acts any different around him at lunch. But he doesn’t get the chance. 

“I love you,” murmurs Fred into FP’s chest for the first time, and FP feels his heart stop. 

* * *

Riverdale’s down by three runs when FP steps up to the plate, the bottom of the ninth with a walk-out home run their only hope at clinching the game. Fred, in the dugout, is biting down hard on the fleshy part of his thumb to keep from screaming. Next to him, Coach Kleats and their entire team are grounded in the same sweaty, anxious prayer, white-knuckling the fence in anticipation. 

FP’s their last hope. 

“Come on, FP,” whispers Fred as his friend takes the plate. He crosses his fingers and uncrosses them to nibble anxiously at his dirty fingernails. “Come on.” 

It’s full summer in Riverdale: toasty golden and sweet-smelling, without a hint of cloud. The dugout reeks of sunscreen and sweat, the sun off the metal bleachers blistering retinas from here to the outfield. The small but dedicated crowd is thumping their feet against the aluminum, an impatient heartbeat at the edge of the field. The red dirt they’ve been sliding in is crumbly and baked with cracks. FP pauses at the plate and digs himself a little hole to stand in, coating his secondhand cleats with bloody dust. Fred’s been choking on that stuff all day. His mom is going to slaughter him when he comes home with his white uniform burnished red. 

The pitcher is a massive blond boy from Central High, one Fred knows from experience is not to be messed with. Central had sent out their best. Kleats, beside Fred, is leaving sweaty palm-marks on the papers on his clipboard, tangling them into mush in his callused hands. Fred can feel nervous sweat running down the back of his neck, between his shoulder blades. Fred’s a better hitter than FP is. But FP knows how to run. 

FP smacks his bat on the plate and then shoulders it.  _ Elbow higher _ , thinks Fred instinctively, and FP lifts the bat as if Fred’s thoughts had been beamed directly into his brain. 

“You got this, FP!” Harry Clayton yells, and a couple teammates take up the encouragement. 

“C’mon, FP!” 

“Show ‘em what you got!” 

Fred says nothing, his tongue too heavy in his mouth to shout, but he focuses his mental energy as hard as he can in case they do share a telepathic link after all.  _ You can do it _ , he wills FP silently, focused with laser-intensity on his best friend’s smooth, sunlit face.  _ You can do this. You know how.  _

The wind up seems to last an eternity. This pitcher has a stillness in him that could intimidate a pro. He stands like he’s a part of the field, like he’d sprouted organic out of the ground with a glove on his hand, looking down toward FP with eyes that seem to see through him. 

FP, in his turn, is a scuffler, a black ant on the face of the diamond. He kicks the dust. Rolls his shoulders. Readjusts his grip. Coach Kleats looks like he’s in tears, Harry Clayton breathing down his neck behind him. The opposing team is shouting encouragement at their pitcher. Fred clutches his hands into anxious fists. 

FP swings and misses on the first throw. Low and a little outside. No one moans aloud, but the slump in the dugout is palpable, the energy fizzling like a flat soda. Fred watches FP spit ferociously on the ground, shuffling the groove he’s worn in front of the plate even deeper. The bat is shaking when he lifts it up again. FP knows he’s their last hope. 

_ Focus, _ Fred urges him telepathically, his fingernails wearing grooves into the palms of his sweaty hands. The changeup is coming, and FP has a bad habit of falling for them. 

The pitcher tosses the ball into his glove a few times and then throws. FP swings with all his strength, but the ball flutters by him and hits the catcher’s glove with a solid smack. Strike two. 

FP’s frustrated now. Coach Kleats is throwing signals at him like the interpreter of a particularly fast-paced argument. Fred’s heart is heavy. He hopes it’ll come quick. FP takes failures to heart for a long time, especially in athletics. Embarrassment and defeat hurt him like nothing else. 

_ End it, _ he pleads mentally with the Central pitcher now, loosening his nails from his palms and already tasting his post-defeat soda from Pop’s, unhappily anticipating the thundercloud of FP’s wrath when the rest of the team starts sympathizing with him.  _ Just throw it and get it over with.  _

Central players have a habit of peacocking, though, and this one’s taking his time. The sound of feet against metallic bleaches has reached a crescendo.  _ Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump.  _ The kids in Central red are cheering loud. The anticipation and dread in the dugout are so thick around him that Fred feels like he’s treading water. 

The third pitch comes in hard and fast and high. FP swings the bat, and the connection explodes with a crack that sounds like gunfire.

For a millisecond FP freezes at the plate, backs up with his eyes on his home run like he can’t believe it’s real. Then, spurred on by the screams from the Riverdale dugout, he runs. Not for nothing is FP the fastest on their team. He crosses first plate like his feet have grown wings, his blistering tread so light the dust hardly stirs. Arms pumping, he keeps going, all narrow focus and sinewy muscle, Fred’s heart so close to the front of his mouth he can taste it. 

He passes second as one of Central’s outfielders scoops the ball up and sends it back toward the infield, the killer arm that Central is famous for closing their window. 

Their third-base coach is signaling him to stop at third. FP hits third base and pauses for a millisecond that lasts a year, glances back for the briefest moment, the sun caught in his skin, the muscles in his legs taut and tense and poised to fly. For a second he looks so much like a picture that Fred’s heart skips a beat, thinking for a moment that he might remember him forever like this: strong and athletic and perfect, a smattering of sunburn across his nose, one foot on third and the other pointing toward home. 

Fred lets his scream slip out before he can help himself, grabbing the fence in both hands as he pushes himself up, and even through the mad frenzy of the crowd FP hears him loud and clear: 

“RUN, FP, RUN!” 

Kleats grabs Fred by the scruff of his neck and hauls him down off the fence, but FP’s already off and running. Central’s shortstop has ended up with the ball and Fred watches in horror as he rears back to send it home, certain he’s cost them all the game.

But no one can outrun FP. His foot hits home a blinding second before the ball comes in, the umpire yelling “SAFE!”’over hoarded of screaming, stomping Riverdale students and the outpouring of players from Riverdale’s side. Fred tears up into the sunshine with Kleats and Jerry Mason hot on his heels, kicking up red dust as he runs for his friend with his arms outstretched. 

“I LOVE YOU!” screams Fred as FP keeps running, over the base and hard toward his teammates, heading right for Fred’s arms. “I L-” 

FP crashes his warm mouth onto Fred’s lips before he can say anything else.

* * *

The hospital room where they leave his best friend is a sterile prison of machinery, thrown into too-sharp relief by the building’s fluorescent lighting. It’s three in the morning, and the bright light is cruel against FP’s tired eyes, drawing out scrambling fissures on his retinas like TV static. The shadows are too harsh, the colours almost pulsing with his exhaustion, but he makes no move to the light switch. With the lights out the room is as blue and as cold as death, and Fred’s never liked the dark. 

The heart monitor is the only audible sound, impossibly harsh and clinical against the softness of Fred’s breathing, worlds away from the warm steadiness that FP usually associates with Fred’s pulse. He’s learned to make friends with the noise. That beeping means he’s stable, he’s alive. Means he’ll wake up. 

Fred’s asleep on the paper-thin hospital sheets, himself thin enough to be breakable. His arms are dwarfed by the IVs, the tubes in his throat and nose almost burying him. His small hand is curled into a limp fist on the blankets. FP has his hand wrapped around it, keeping it warm. Fred’s face is pale and lined, with bruise-coloured shadows under his eyes. FP had glimpsed himself that morning in the hospital bathroom and realized he looked almost the same. 

Shot. The thought keeps tumbling through FP’s tired mind, clicking like a broken needle on a record player. He can’t make sense of it, even with the evidence quiet and heavy in the palm of his hand. Somewhere under Fred’s hospital gown is a bullet wound. Someone had pointed a gun at his best friend and fired. 

A hot wetness runs down his right cheek, his vision momentarily overtaken by the blurry tears that have been rising in his eyes. FP lets himself cry only this late at night, only when he’s alone here. He squeezes Fred’s weak hand tighter in his and chokes back a childlike wail when he gets no response. 

It used to be the two of them against the big wide world. Now this room is all they have, this lighting and the smell of antiseptic potent enough to make him nauseous. They sit here and they wait, and FP can taste in his mouth every apology that he never made him. 

_ I love you, _ he thinks. 

“I love you,” he says. 

For the first time in their shared lives, Fred doesn’t reply. 

* * *

They’re on the balcony of their hotel room in their wedding clothes, breathing night air that’s as sweet and as gentle as summertime. Music is playing softly from inside, champagne awaiting them with a bucket of ice, but they’re content for now to only stand in the night, pressing their brand-new wedding rings into each others palms as they hold hands. Fireworks are going off - for someone or something else, not to mark their matrimony, but they pretend that it’s theirs. Fred is beaming with excitement like a little boy. FP can’t take his eyes off of him, the way he glows like a little fire. 

A lull in the firework show, and then a huge smattering of them: the kind that soars up and then droops down like a waterfall. Fred tilts his head up to the sky to see better. Red, blue, violet. The light reflects in his eyes and FP stares at his face for a long moment, committing every piece of it to memory despite the lifetime he’s now permitted to spend watching. The laugh lines around Fred’s eyes are his favourite. The colours wash over his soft-combed hair and FP brushes a tear quickly off his face before it can fall, moving closer to Fred so that their matching kilts brush (Andrews family tartan), their thighs under them. Until they can’t get any closer. 

Fred turns to him and FP feels his heart speed up, pounding as quickly in his chest at their proximity as it had when they were fourteen. Their eyes are so near to one another and he loses himself in Fred’s for a long moment, the close unyielding brown of them, the perfect warmth that’s his forever. 

FP looks long into his face, feels the words stir between them, knows with a euphoric happiness unlike anything he’s ever felt that their kiss is coming, that it’s going to taste like Fred, like sugar-sweet, that he’s going to taste those three words on his lips for the rest of his life, that Fred’s going to press them into his mouth like a brand the way he’s pressing his wedding band into his finger. 

“I love-” begins FP, but Fred traps his husband’s face between his hands before he can finish, tilting his head and kissing him deeply, swallowing the rest of the sentence. 

 


End file.
